


Welcome Christmas

by MissDavis



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Christmas, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Parenthood, Parentlock, Post-Season/Series 04, Sharing a Bed, Winter, just a little because I can't write that much fluff in one month
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-05 10:36:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 18,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16808971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissDavis/pseuds/MissDavis
Summary: Join John and Sherlock at Baker Street as they celebrate Rosie's first Christmas and beyond.From Rosie crawling around the flat as they tiptoe around each other en route to their first kiss, to a happy retirement with a young grandson who wants to be just like Grandad and Papa, this fic shows how Sherlock and John celebrate Christmas together through the years.





	1. Holiday Decor

**Author's Note:**

> These ficlets are written as part of the 2018 Advent Ficlet Challenge. [The prompts can be found here.](http://missdaviswrites.tumblr.com/post/180398829883/2018-advent-ficlet-challenge) Join us if you'd like! My ficlets will be focused on parentlock and if this year is anything like the other years I've done this, the stories will probably jump back and forth in time quite a bit.
> 
> These will not be beta-read or Brit-picked due to time constraints, and I'm just sticking with American spelling for this. It's hard enough writing a ficlet every day!

John found the boxes stored away in a cupboard he hadn't opened since...he'd probably never opened it. Last year he and Mary hadn't really celebrated Christmas, apart from the trip to Sherlock's parents' house, which hadn't turned out to be much of a celebration. And the year before that, the year Sherlock had come back from the dead, well. John had certainly been in a more festive holiday spirit that year, but Mary had handled all the decorations. And when the season was over she'd packed them up and stuck them in this cupboard, the boxes labeled with a thick black marker, the block-printing much neater than her usual hurried scrawl. 

He pulled the first box out into the hallway and wiped a layer of dust from the top. " **FAIRY LIGHTS + GARLAND** " read the label. Perfect. Rosie loved the lights—that was what had given him the idea to decorate in the first place. He and Sherlock had gone out to dinner to celebrate finishing all the Baker Street flat renovations and brought Rosie along with them. They'd walked back home in the dark, trading off Rosie-carrying duty every block or so, but not because she was being her usual fussy self about being held. It was the first time she'd ever seen fairy lights lit, strung across shopfronts and homes and glittering in the cold evening air. She was enchanted by the sight, and watching her, holding her while she pointed and babbled in awe at the twinkling colors, John had resolved to decorate for the holiday this year.

"Daddy! Where's Daddy?" Sherlock's voice called out through the house, falsely high as he used his teaching-Rosie-words voice. He appeared at the end of the hallway, Rosie held high on one hip. "There he is! There's Daddy!"

Rosie mimicked Sherlock by pointing and shouting, "Da-da!" then squirmed free from Sherlock's grasp so she could crawl down the hall toward John.

He squatted and picked her up when she reached him. "Hey, darling." He wiped a bit of her lunch off her cheek and stood up, bouncing her in his arms.

"Da-da!" she shrieked, and he felt himself warm, still amazed at her use of the word, even though she'd been saying it for several weeks now, and sometimes applied it to inanimate objects that were decidedly not him. 

He nuzzled the top of her head and then shifted her to one side to address Sherlock. "You want to grab the rest of those boxes out of there for me?" He tipped his head back toward the cupboard.

Sherlock wrinkled his nose. "You want me to decorate your house for you, too?"

"Nope. Because we're not decorating this house this year."

"Then why do you want me lug to all those boxes out?"

"We're going to take them to Baker Street and decorate the flat."

"Are we?"

"Yep. We spend more time there now anyway, now that everything's functioning again." All of Sherlock's and Mrs. Hudson's decorations that had been stored in John's old rooms upstairs had been destroyed in the explosion, but these boxes would give them the chance to have at least the beginnings of a merry Christmas again.

Sherlock hesitated, and John began to construct his response to the argument that was no doubt about to begin. But instead Sherlock said, "We'll need to get a large baby gate to put around the tree." He pulled out his phone and began to tap at it; John knew he was already shopping for an appropriate safety barrier for Rosie.

"Da-da!" Rosie yelled, and threw herself forward in John's arms, trying to reach the cardboard box that sat in the hall. John set her on her feet next to it, and she proceeded to walk around the box, holding onto it for support. "Da-da!" She banged on the top of the box with both fists.

"Yes, darling. I'll open it soon and you can see all the pretty lights. Not yet, though. First Daddy has to take you and Sherlock back to Baker Street."


	2. Star

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp it's been 2 days and already I have started misinterpreting my own prompts/neglecting to make them actually have anything to do with Christmas or winter or whatever. But I haven't started with the angst yet, at least!

Rosie came down the stairs very carefully, because her new shoes were a little tight and her dress was a lot fluffier than the clothes she usually wore. But she loved it, because it was her favorite shade of green and when she spun around in a circle it made her look like a ballerina.

Daddy was sitting in his chair by the fireplace, reading something on his phone, probably boring news stories. He put the phone down when he saw her. “You look beautiful, darling! You and Mrs. Hudson picked out the perfect dress, didn’t you?”

“Yep.” She spun around to show him and only wobbled a tiny bit.

“Hmm, what should I wear to match you?”

“Erm.” Rosie stopped spinning and spread her feet apart a little so she didn’t tip over. The dress was for her school’s father-daughter dance, but.... “I don’t want you to go with me, Daddy.”

“Sorry, what? It’s a father-daughter dance. You can’t go alone.”

“I’m not going alone. I’m going to take Sherlock.” Obviously. She didn’t say that word out loud because sometimes Daddy got annoyed when she did.

“Sherlock?”

“Yep!” 

“Okay, well,” Daddy said. “You can ask him, but I’m not sure he’ll want to go. I don’t want you to be disappointed if he says no.”

“He won’t say no. He loves me!”

“Of course he loves you, sweetheart. We both do. But that doesn’t mean that Sherlock will be willing to spend an evening surrounded by a hundred of your classmates and their fathers, listening to pop music he’s never heard before.”

“I’m gonna ask him,” Rosie said, then shouted Sherlock’s name until he poked his head out from his and Daddy’s bedroom. 

“Has there been a murder or is there some other reason to wake me this early on a weekend?” He stepped out into the hallway, pulling on his dressing gown and Rosie ran through the kitchen toward him.

Or tried to run, because the shoes were also kind of slippery. Sherlock caught her right when she was almost falling over. She laughed when he swooped her up high and then set her on one of the chairs at the kitchen table. “I’ve been up for hours already, Sherlock!” she told him.

“That’s terrible to hear,” he said. “Would you like to take a nap?”

“No!”

“I see.” He pushed the button on the tea kettle and turned around to look at her, arms crossed. “Why are you dressed up so fancy this morning? Are you about to go dancing?”

“I am!” she said. “On Friday! To the father-daughter dance.”

“Lovely. I hope you and your father have a wonderful time.” He turned around again and opened the cabinet where they kept the tea cups.

“Nope!” Rosie said. “Daddy’s not going with me. You are!”

“Me?” Sherlock looked over his shoulder at her, his face a little confused.

“Of course, you, Sherlock!” She bounced out of the chair toward him. “It’s a dance! I can’t bring Daddy!”

“Excellent point, though I did once teach your father to dance.” Sherlock pulled out his favorite mug and put some tea in it. “But you’re right. Daddy can’t compare to me. Friday, you say?”

“Yes! You’re such a good dancer, and everyone knows who you are, and I have the prettiest dress ever.” Rosie couldn’t believe how excited she was, even more than she had been when she woke up this morning and remembered her new dress. She spun around in a circle again even though there wasn’t much room for spinning in the kitchen. “I’m going to be the star of the dance!"

“Rosie!” Daddy stood in the doorway of the kitchen, arms crossed just like Sherlock’s were a minute ago. “School dances don’t have stars. It will be just be you and your friends having a good time.”

Rosie stopped spinning and frowned at Daddy, but Sherlock squatted down next to her and whispered in her ear. “Don’t worry, Rosie. I’ll help you work on your dance moves, and you will definitely be a star.”


	3. You Better Watch Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had a rough night last night and today wasn't much better, so only had time to write a 221B tonight. Enjoy!

"You better watch out." 

John looked up in alarm at Sherlock, who stood in the nursery doorway, then back down at Rosie. She was attempting to squirm off the changing table, but that wasn't anything new. "What are you talking about?"

"Christmas." Sherlock strode into the room and flopped into the glider chair that Mary had used for nursing Rosie. John had spent many sleepless hours in that chair since, trying to get Rosie to settle for the night. 

He frowned and turned his attention back to getting her ready for bed. If Sherlock had something important to say, he would spit it out eventually. Never could keep himself quiet for long.

He didn't. "Mycroft called to say he received a formal invitation in the post and that we should expect the same."

"Okay." He snapped Rosie's pyjamas shut, waiting for an explanation.

Sherlock sighed, dropping his head back onto the glider's cushion. "Mummy is requiring us all to return to her house to atone for causing her to miss last year's holiday celebration."

"Requiring us?" John felt his lips twitch into a smile. "Sherlock, Rosie loves your parents. We'll be happy to see them at Christmas. "

"No, we won't, John. Mark my words."

"Oh, come on, Sherlock. Give it a chance. Maybe this year Christmas won't be that bad."


	4. Snowman

The inch of snow that had blanketed London lasted only a day before being replaced by a marginally warmer rain. Thank God; John didn't think he could have handled another day of being snowed in with Rosie and Sherlock. Though Rosie had spent over an hour outside yesterday, which was why she was now crying at her bedroom window instead of getting dressed and eating her breakfast.

"Come on, sweetheart. Do you want to wear your jumper with the bunny rabbits on it?"

"I want my snowman back!" Rosie sobbed. 

John sighed and stuffed her jumper and a pair of pink trousers into her bag. He needed to drop her at Molly's in thirty minutes if he wanted to be on time to work, though if she really refused to cooperate, he could always drag Sherlock out of bed and let him worry about getting her there. "I'm sorry, Rosie. But that's just what happens with snowmen. When it gets warm they melt away and aren't there anymore."

Rosie gulped back more tears and pressed both hands and her nose against the window pane, looking out at the small lump that had been her first snowman, albeit one only about a foot tall. "It's gone forever? Like Mummy?"

John blinked. He was not ready to have this conversation with a five-year-old this early in the morning. "Ye-es, sort of. But Mummy was a real person and your snowman wasn't. You can make a new one next time it snows."

Rosie sniffed and turned away from the window to look at him. "Like Sherlock?"

"Sure, Sherlock can help you. Put your socks on at least—you can wear your pyjamas in the car."

"No, I mean can I get another snowman, like you got Sherlock after Mummy died?"

"What—what?" John dropped down to sit on her bed. Definitely way too early to be having this conversation. "Rosie, sweetheart. I loved your Mummy and I love Sherlock, but a snowman is not like a person. It's just frozen water."

"Will you build a new snowman with me when it snows again?"

"Yes, of course I will. Can you please put your socks on so you can go to Aunt Molly's now?"

She nodded and wiped her runny nose on the back of her hand. "I will." She took the socks he offered her and used one of them as a tissue. "I need cleaner socks. Do you think Aunt Molly has hot chocolate? I still feel cold from the snow."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know, I mean I know I came up with the prompts but I'm just making this up as I go along.


	5. Believe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 5 days before throwing in some hurt/comfort and/or angst is about average for me.

_John will save me._

Sherlock felt his grip on consciousness slipping again. That was okay. When he woke up John would be here. To save him. Right? Right.

Sometime later his eyes were open again. There was no light in the room he had been thrown into and it had been equally dark when he'd...gone to sleep? Passed out? Something. He was awake now, though, lying on his side, wondering when John would get here, but awake. He should...do something. What? Sit up, yes. He was lying on his side; he tried to roll in preparation for sitting but his hands and feet were shackled together behind him. That explained why all the joints in his limbs hurt so much. He tugged at the restraints, trying to deduce how they were fastened—handcuffs, maybe—but his head and stomach both lurched when he moved so he stopped trying to escape. He didn't need to escape. John would save him. Soon. 

Next time still dark. Probably not much time passed. Nothing had changed. Wrong. Knees, ankles, shoulders hurt more, but head hurt less. More hunger, less nausea. Good? Good. As long as he was rescued soon. He would be. He squirmed a bit on the floor, trying to use senses other than sight to figure out where he was. Hard floor beneath him, wall behind him he could just graze with his feet, nothing else close. Where was he? He sniffed, smelled something stale. Familiar. He knew that scent. Freon. Like an old fridge-freezer. Yes, that's where he was. A walk-in freezer. Not currently operating, thankfully; he was cold lying coatless on the floor, but not freezing. 

John would save him. John always saved him. He'd saved him from Cul—Cul.... That short man, the one with the bad teeth. Faith's father. John had saved him even as that man held a pillow over his face to suff—suffocate him. John broke open the door with a fire thingamajig and saved him. He'd do it again, he'd.... _Wait._ John said he only saved him because Mary told him to. But Mary wasn't...DVD? How...how would he know...how.... John would save him. He always did.

"Sherlock!"

 _John._ A dream. Hallucination. Drugged? Probably. Hadn't done it to himself though. That had to count for something. Good dream, it was. John was warm, warmer than a not-freezing freezer. John's hand on his face was warm. He hoped the dream hallucination didn't end soon.

"Sherlock!" The warm hand went into his hair and twisted at his ear. _Ow._ He opened his eyes. John.

"Wake up, yeah? You gotta move a little so I can get you out of these chains. Come on." 

John's whole body was warm and Sherlock was now fairly sure this was not a hallucination. Could still be a dream, though; he'd definitely dreamed about John's warm body holding his before, though perhaps not with this level of uncomfortable detail. The zip of John's coat scraping against his cheek as John shifted positions to reach behind him; the violent snick of wire cutters on the chains between his arms and legs, startling enough to bump his head against John's chest.

"Hey, hey." John's hand went to his head again, ran gently down his cheek and then settled just above his left hip. "You're okay. You with me? I cut the chains and Lestrade will be here in a minute with a key to get the cuffs off your hands and feet."

"Got keys at home." He heard his own words slur together as he leaned into John's chest again.

"Of course you do." John's warm body vibrated when he laughed. "You're shaking. I got you. You're okay."

Sherlock opened his mouth and made an effort to speak clearly. "How did you know?"

"Well, I knew something was wrong when you didn't pick up Rosie from Molly at three. She brought her over to the surgery so she could get to work, then I called Lestrade and your brother and we...." John kept talking but Sherlock stopped listening. John's hands were warm and everywhere that he touched got warm, too. It was a little freezing in here but much better now and also not dark anymore because John made it light and Sherlock knew he would come and save him. He knew. He knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eventually I will probably write about Christmas.


	6. Fireplace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not have much time to write today's ficlet, and I really didn't have any time to do medical research, so let's just go with a bit of hand-waving in this sequel to yesterday's story.

Sherlock thought he’d never be warm again, but now, leaning back in his chair with his slippered feet stretched out toward the fireplace, heat was finally beginning to return to his stiff, aching limbs.

John emerged from the kitchen, carrying a steaming mug of tea. "That's your third cup since we've been home. You're going to be up all night."

"That’s okay. I got plenty of rest earlier today." He reached for the mug, cognizant of the fact that John was watching to see how steady his hand was as he took it from him. He'd only splashed a little bit out of his first cup of tea when he got home from hospital, and none at all from the second. John was overreacting.

"In my experience, being grabbed off the street by a couple of thugs and injected with enough sedative to knock you out for most of a day is not quite as restful as lying down for a bit of an afternoon kip." John brushed his fingers against Sherlock's shoulder and then walked over to sit in his own chair, apparently satisfied with Sherlock's tea-holding performance. 

Sherlock brought the mug to his lips and exhaled a soft breath over the top of it; it was still too hot to sip. His shoulder seemed to tingle where John had just touched it, but of course that had to be only his imagination. Or residual pain—he'd been taking alternating doses of ibuprofen and paracetamol, which did ease the muscle strain from being held in chains and handcuffs for so long, but didn't quite erase it completely. 

John had been very...hands-on ever since he'd rescued Sherlock from the freezer. He'd helped him to walk and wrapped his arms around him in the back of Lestrade's car. He'd said he was trying to warm him up and help restore his blood flow, which was certainly true, but Sherlock also suspected...John just wanted to hug him? It had continued afterward, with John oscillating between trying to doctor him every time the hospital staff stepped away from the examination bay and practically sitting on the bed with him while he was being treated, as if afraid to let him out of arm's reach. Sherlock certainly didn't mind, but now. Now. He did like being touched by John, but he also hoped John stopped doing it after tonight. It was too...too much. Too enjoyable, and too frustrating knowing that John was only touching him to reassure himself that his best friend was safe and unharmed. Sherlock would have preferred something both more intimate and more permanent, but he had learned years ago how to submerge those longings. It was just exponentially more difficult to do so when John kept putting his hands on him.

"Your headache's completely gone?"

"Yes," Sherlock said, for the tenth or twentieth time.

"Good. Good. I think those A&E docs were right, no concussion, it was just the drugs and some mild hypothermia."

Sherlock nodded. "Well, if you agree with them, then they must be right."

John squinted at him and then laughed. "You certainly seem to be yourself again."

"Mm." Sherlock took a first, hesitant sip of the tea, still very hot. 

"Mrs. Hudson said Rosie went out like a light around seven, so I think we'll just spend the night here, if that's all right."

"Of course it is." He set the tea down on the small table next to his chair and stretched toward the fire again, twisting his neck and rolling his shoulders to try to relax the abused muscles. 

"Still sore?"

"A bit. Mycroft claims I'm middle-aged now."

John laughed again, the sound filling the space between them. "He may be right. Let me help?"

Before Sherlock could interpret his words, John was standing behind his chair, hands lightly resting on his shoulders. "Okay?" John asked as he began to rub his thumbs in small circles on the muscles to either side of Sherlock's neck.

Sherlock nodded, only shivering a bit as John pushed his dressing gown out of the way and slipped his fingers beneath the t-shirt he wore. He closed his eyes and allowed himself this one evening of indulgence, letting the warmth of John's touch behind him and the fireplace in front of him seep through his whole body and mind.


	7. Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, big jump in time ahead. When I started I thought this might be a 221B but instead it's the longest one I've written so far this year.

Rosie let herself in to the cottage. Dad and Sherlock weren't expecting her, because she'd been planning to spend the holiday with Noah's family, but it turned out Noah's family was full of homophobic arseholes and Noah himself really wasn't worth it. 

"Merry Christmas Eve!" she shouted when no one came to the door to greet her. "Am I interrupting anything here?"

She heard a clatter come from the kitchen and then Dad's voice. "Sherlock is still in bed and I've been up since six. What do you think you'd be interrupting?"

She grinned and wiped her shoes on the door mat before going into the kitchen to find him. He'd pulled a third mug from the cabinet and was filling it with coffee. Without looking up from what he was doing he said, "We've only got skimmed milk, no cream. Sorry."

She put her handbag down on the table and crossed the room to fold him into a quick hug. He was nearly as short as she was, now, and she was pretty sure she outweighed him by a good stone. "We need to feed you up, Dad. I'll go out and buy you some whole milk later so we can have a proper breakfast on Christmas morning."

His face brightened, though not at the prospect of fatty milk, obviously. "You staying the night, then? I thought you were spending Christmas in Bristol?"

"I was, but then I dumped Noah instead."

"You did? Why?" 

She shrugged. "He just wasn't the one for me. Anyway, I'd miss you too much if I didn't get to see you at Christmas. Shall I go wake Sherlock up or are we letting him sleep until noon?"

"I'm not asleep." Sherlock appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, wearing what Rosie would have sworn was the same camel-colored dressing gown that he'd had since she was a kid. "How could I be asleep with all this chattering going on in here?" He wrinkled his nose, then came into the kitchen and kissed both of them on the tops of their heads. "Noah didn't deserve you. I'm glad you came to your senses before I had to chase him away."

Rosie shook her head and then sat down at the kitchen table. "So I already sent you your Christmas gifts, but I've got one more thing you can have if you want." She pulled a thin, rectangular box from her handbag. "I bought this reading screen to give to Noah, but I've already got a better one myself. But one of you might want it because it's better than the old tablets you have."

"My tablet's not old." Sherlock sniffed. "It works better than these new thin devices that break if you drop them once."

"Well, yours might be sturdier but it does not work better than this." She slid the device from the box and powered it on—it was fully-charged and ready to use. "Give me your wifi password and I'll show you."

"Your date of birth, Dad's date of birth, my date of birth, the day Dad and I met, the day we first kissed, the anniversary of our wedding." Sherlock sat down at the table across from her and then pulled the screen away from her when she hesitated over entering the numbers. He got to the preset welcome page and frowned. "It is not better than my tablet. There's hardly anything on it."

"It is better than your tablet, you just have to tell it what you want it to do. You should see it display photos—Livy and Colin's engagement photos look amazing on it. Even old pictures look like you're standing right there and could reach out and touch the people in them."

Sherlock pursed his lips for a moment, then pulled the screen closer, touching it once to bring up the keyboard. "I hope the site's still there." He leaned over the screen. "How do you make it bigger so I can—ah there it is." The font size doubled and he began to type something.

"Coffee's ready," Dad said. "I'll get your reading glasses."

Rosie brought the mugs over to the table while Dad went into the bedroom to retrieve Sherlock's glasses. He accepted both the glasses and the coffee without comment, then pointed to the screen. "Here it is. I haven't done it in a few years now, but for a long time I uploaded all the photos I took to this site. It's not publicly available, but Mycroft assured me it would be secure and permanent, so I'd never have to worry about losing my pictures if a commercial web service folded."

Dad dragged a chair around so he could sit next to Sherlock, who scooted his own chair over so there was room for them both on that side of the table. "You put all our family photos on a secret government website?"

"Not everything, no. Nothing I wouldn't want Mycroft or the rest of the government to see, of course. But most of the holiday photographs, things like that, are here. Starting when you were a baby, Rosie. There are some of your Mum here, at the very beginning. Everyone thought I wasn't paying attention at your christening, but I was."

He swiped to the beginning of the photo archive; Rosie caught a glimpse of herself dressed in a white christening gown, being held by her mum while Dad smiled unaffectedly, oblivious to the camera. She wanted a closer look, but when she saw how intently Dad was now studying each photo, she leaned back in her chair, happy to let him have the memories to himself for a little while.

"These are from Rosie's first Christmas at your parents' house—look at Mycroft and your mother! They would have killed you if they knew you took that photo while they were yelling at each other."

"Mm, I know. But I thought I should take pictures to document what happened, so the police could solve the case should my entire family murder one another." He glanced sideways at Dad. "Though I guess you would have survived to tell the tale. No one wanted you dead that time."

"Yeah, I know. Rosie and I were the only buffer between your family and mass murder."

Sherlock nodded. "People get emotional at the holidays. Even Holmeses. That was a rough year for all of them."

"For all of us," Dad agreed, and shifted in his chair so he could put an arm around Sherlock's shoulders as they continued through the photos. "Oh, here's the day Rosie and I moved into Baker Street. Remember she had an ear infection and cried for three days straight?"

"I do remember. The only time I thought I may have made a mistake inviting the two of you to live there."

"I've never seen most of these photos before," Dad said. "Why didn't you show them to me?" 

Sherlock shrugged. "Didn't want you to think me overly sentimental."

Dad lifted his gaze from the screen to meet Rosie's eyes for a moment; she burst out laughing a split-second before he did.

"What? What's so funny?" Sherlock pushed his reading glasses up on his forehead and looked back and forth between the two of them in confusion.

Dad pulled Sherlock closer in an embrace. "You're the perfect amount of sentimental, love. Let's all go sit on the sofa together and we can look through the rest of these photographs."


	8. Music

John opened the door to the flat to the sound of music. Not unusual: Sherlock had been playing the violin for Rosie since she was a newborn, and sometimes John caught them dancing around the sitting room together, Rosie laughing as he swooped her about, safe in his arms. But today was different—today Sherlock was singing along with the music. And it was Christmas music. Not traditional carols, either, but popular Christmas songs, the kind they played in every shop all season long. The kind Sherlock professed to hate, when he admitted knowing them at all.

"Are you singing Wham! to my daughter?"

Sherlock froze, his back to John, then turned quickly to face him, lowering Rosie to the floor so she could crawl across the room to him. "It wasn't my choice. Rosie likes George Michael."

"Rosie likes George Michael?"

"Ye-yes. His voice. Is very pleasing to her. She really likes this song. Mrs. Hudson first exposed her to it, of course."

"Of course." John set his work satchel down so he could pick up Rosie, who was trying to climb his leg. "Why do you know who George Michael is but not Madonna?"

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at John before stalking across the room to turn off the music. "Madonna doesn't have any Christmas songs."

"Mm, I think she did a cover of Santa Baby." John bounced Rosie once on his hip and decided not to try to sing a snippet of that song.

"Are you quite done?" Sherlock flopped onto the sofa and Rosie immediately began squirming in John's arms, reaching toward him.

"I guess I am." He carried Rosie over to the sofa and plopped her down on Sherlock's chest, then turned around and walked to the desk so he could sort through the growing pile of post. "It's okay if you like that song, you know. I like it, too. Yeah, it's overplayed, but I always did like George Michael's voice. Not to mention how cute he was." He chose his words carefully, and wanted nothing more than to see Sherlock's reaction to them, but didn't dare turn to look. "You've got quite a few bills piling up here. Want me to stick around for a while and pay them for you?" That gave him a reason to turn, but when he did, Sherlock's attention seemed to be wholly focused on Rosie, who was giggling as she pulled at the buttons on his shirt. 

John swallowed back a sigh. It had been days since Sherlock had been abducted and held chained up for hours, days since John had found him and taken care of him afterward. Days since they'd touched each other. He was sure that Sherlock had welcomed his touch, that night, but maybe that was only a byproduct of his kidnapping ordeal: a lingering effect of the drugs, or simply the fact that he'd needed comforting. Maybe he didn't want John to touch him under normal circumstances. He wished he knew. He wished he could just ask. But he couldn't—it had taken all his courage just to casually mention that he'd once thought George Michael attractive. And Sherlock hadn't replied, hadn't agreed or disagreed or pursued a conversation about how exactly John defined his sexuality. Maybe he really wasn't interested in knowing.

John grimaced and picked up a pile of envelopes. "You keep her entertained for a while. I'll make dinner and take care of these bills while it's cooking." 

"Sounds good," Sherlock said. 

Right. It sounded good. John would take care of all the little daily details that Sherlock neglected while Sherlock looked after Rosie, one of the few mundane tasks that he did willingly and even seemed to enjoy. John should just move back in; then they could act like they were married in every way but one. Maybe that would be better than nothing. At least his commute would be shorter. He sighed again, not caring if it was audible this time, and headed into the kitchen to start dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eh, I think if you follow the timeline of the show, Rosie was probably born in 2014, which means George Michael would still be alive here. Oops.


	9. Gift

Sherlock stepped into 221 Baker Street and was met by John and Rosie, who were emerging from Mrs. Hudson's flat.

"You're home! We thought you'd never get here!" Rosie bounced across the hallway and grabbed him by the hand. 

He narrowed his eyes at her. He did consider himself to be the more fun of her two parental figures, but she wasn't normally this happy to see him. And even John looked rather more excited than he usually did at 7 pm on a Tuesday evening, after a long day of working and parenting. "What's going on?"

John glanced at Rosie, then smiled at Sherlock. "Well, I know it's a few weeks till Christmas yet, and it's not really a gift...I mean it's something we got for you but—"

"It's for all of us!" Rosie squeezed his hand and tried to pull him toward Mrs. Hudson's flat. Sherlock allowed her to lead him for a couple of steps before she let go and ran ahead to the door.

"Yes, Rosie," John said. "Anyway, I know how now that Rosie's in school and I'm at work most days, you get a little bored when you don't have a case, so—"

"We got you a dog!" Rosie pushed open Mrs. Hudson's door and a small, curly-haired, black puppy of perhaps four months dashed out into the hallway. 

"You got me a—" Sherlock found himself dropping immediately to his knees to let the puppy sniff his hands and then his face, while Rosie and John continued to speak.

"Yes, we hoped you wouldn't be fussy about the breed." John squatted next to Sherlock and reached out to scratch behind the dog's ears. "I knew you liked big dogs, so I thought a standard poodle was a good idea, because they're supposed to be hypoallergenic, and she spent the morning licking my hands while we took her to the vet and I haven't stopped breathing yet."

"Plus she looks like you!"

"Rosie!" John looked up at his daughter. "I thought we weren't going to tell him that part."

"But she has black curly hair and Daddy says she'll be tall! Plus poodles are really smart, just like you!"

"Yeah, but they're also easy to train," John said, and stood up with a laugh. "So not exactly like you." He nudged Sherlock's foot with his own. "So, what do you think? Is she okay?"

Sherlock tried to take his hands away and stand up, but the dog insisted he continue petting her. Very demanding, wanted to be the center of attention. He decided not to point that out lest John and Rosie claim another similarity. "She'll do," he said. "We'll need to think of a name." He looked up at John and grinned. "And no, despite what you may have been told, Sherlock is not actually a girl's name."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *no I don't think Sherlock's hair is black, but I think a blonde five-year-old might.
> 
> **don't give pets as Christmas gifts unless you are sure the recipient will be committed to caring for them after the holidays (John knows he'll end up taking care of the dog anyway.)
> 
> ***I am definitely a cat person and I think BBC Sherlock would be, too, but this is at least the third fic where I've had John get Sherlock a dog.


	10. Do You See What I See?

Mycroft didn't look up from his paperwork when Anthea stepped into his office. The weekly surveillance reports she held were unlikely to contain any information that required his full attention. He raised a hand to indicate that she should proceed, and she began to recite the usual litany of minor disturbances and unexpected incidents of the past week. As he had predicted, nothing of any import. "Thank you," he said, and continued on with what he had been doing.

"One more thing, sir. I have a summary of the footage we scraped from the cameras in and around your brother's flat on the day he was abducted. We were able to confirm that the Greene brothers did act alone, in retaliation for Mr. Holmes's part in having their uncle arrested for embezzlement. Apart from the thirty minutes the brothers spent waiting for him before he left 221B that morning, no one suspicious was spotted on Baker Street."

"Thank you," Mycroft repeated. "It's gratifying to know that I won't need to devote the resources of an entire government to keeping Sherlock safe. This time."

"Yes, sir." She turned as if to leave, then turned back. "There is, however, something you may find of interest in the video footage."

He raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to explain.

"I had Intern Three review the footage for the twenty-four hour period directly following the abduction. By the next day, everything had returned to normal, but that night...."

"Yes?"

"I sent the relevant recordings to your phone," she said, and turned and left without another word. 

He frowned after her, then reached for his phone, twisting his lip at the prospect of having to stop his real work on behalf of Sherlock. He brought up the video Anthea had sent: several minutes of recordings taken from the cameras inside the flat, which had been installed with Sherlock's knowledge under the understanding that they would only be reviewed when necessary for reasons of security. 

Sherlock sat sprawled in his chair in front of the fireplace. His back was mostly to the camera, but Mycroft knew he'd been looking a bit worse for the wear after his hours in captivity and subsequent trip to A&E. John came into the camera frame; there was no audio, but Mycroft could imagine what they were saying to each other. John would be reprimanding Sherlock for getting captured and complaining about the inconvenience of having to rescue him, while Sherlock would be insisting that he hadn't needed rescuing at all, that he would have escaped on his own soon enough. Why Anthea thought he needed to see this, he could not imagine.

But then: John handed Sherlock a cup of tea and his fingers...lingered. Was he gauging his temperature, to make sure Sherlock had recovered from the hypothermia? It didn't look like it. Mycroft kept watching. John sat for a moment, then got to his feet again and stood behind Sherlock's chair. He began to rub Sherlock's shoulders. Odd, though perhaps he had learned medical massage at some point in his career. From what Mycroft could see, it looked rather more intimate than that, but that could be due to the low light from the fireplace. He couldn't see their faces, after all.

The video Anthea had sent abruptly switched to show footage from another camera in the flat, this one positioned so as to show both Sherlock's and John's faces.

 _Oh. Oh, Sherlock. What have you done?_ Mycroft dropped his head into his hands, then forced himself to take another look, hoping he was wrong, that it was not suppressed desire for his flatmate that he had seen on his brother's face.

But it was. It was. But. He watched to the end of the video, and was positive he was not mistaken. Yes, Sherlock was clearly pining after John, but at the same time, John was longing for Sherlock. And neither of them had the slightest clue about the other. Idiots. They were idiots for feeling such desire in the first place, and then even more idiotic for thinking their feelings were unrequited. Mycroft turned off his phone and tried to put the matter from his mind. There were certainly more pressing issues for him to address. Sherlock and John would have to figure out the solution to their mutual dilemma on their own.


	11. Comfort and Joy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hm, I guess I only got the first half of the prompt into this ficlet. It's been a long day.

When John left the flat to take Lady for a quick walk in the park, everything was fine. When he came back twenty minutes later, Rosie was lying curled on the sofa, sobbing, while Sherlock hovered next to her, literally wringing his hands. 

"What's wrong?" John asked, as he unclipped the leash from Lady's collar. The dog headed immediately to the sofa, nudging her way up onto it and allowing Rosie to bury her face in her fur. John felt itchy just watching, but it did muffle the sobs a bit, even if Rosie didn't stop crying.

Sherlock turned and put his arm around John's shoulders, guiding him across the room toward the kitchen. "It's about a boy," he hissed into John's ear. "I tried to help but I have no idea how these sorts of things work." He dropped his arm away and made a shooing motion, indicating John should go back over to help her.

John bit at his lip and considered. Rosie was far too young to be upset about a boy, in his opinion, but she clearly needed to be comforted, and since cuddling the dog did not seem to be enough, he supposed he needed to talk to her. "Rose, darling? What's wrong?" He stood awkwardly next to the sofa, wishing Mary were here to handle this.

"I hate boys!" Rosie said through her tears. "Especially Jack Nelson and all his stupid friends."

"Okay." He blew out a breath and sat down on the end of the sofa next to her feet, pushing Lady's tail out of the way to make room. "Do you want to tell me what happened?"

"No!" Rosie said. She lifted her head and glared at him. "You're a boy, too. And so is Sherlock. And I hate boys. They're the stupidest things ever!" She wrapped both arms around Lady and pulled her close again; the dog always had let Rosie do whatever she wanted to her.

John tried to put one hand on Rosie's ankle, but she pulled her foot away. He leaned back on the sofa cushion, wondering if it would be better to leave her alone. Sherlock had disappeared into the kitchen, unsurprisingly; he'd been good at relating to her when she was younger, but this pubescent angst was a lot harder to navigate, and John didn't blame him for leaving. "I'm sorry, sweetheart," he said, letting the inadequate words hang between them as she continued to cry against Lady's neck. 

A very long minute or two passed, as John tried to gauge whether her sobs were decreasing in intensity. He was about to attempt patting her ankle again when Sherlock emerged from the kitchen, carrying a tray with four bowls on it.

"Ice cream!" he announced. "Well, yoghurt and peanut butter for Lady, but ice cream for the rest of us." He began to distribute the bowls, and answered the question John had before he asked. "I texted Molly and she said she would be over after her shift ends and that until then, the only solution for stupid boys was ice cream. Her exact words were, 'Don't let John say you can't have ice cream for dinner'."

Lady yipped one small bark and jumped off the sofa to eat her treat; Rosie was quite a bit more subdued, but took the offered bowl and began to eat it without complaint, stopping after every spoonful to wipe her nose. Sherlock and John sat on either side of her on the sofa, and when they were done eating, she let them stay next to her, even if they were both stupid boys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rosie named the dog when she was 5.


	12. Gingerbread

It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

The rain had finally stopped that morning, and the day was relatively warm for December, so John convinced Sherlock and Rosie to come with him when he took Lady out for her walk. There were plenty of other families who'd had the same idea that afternoon, and John enjoyed the bustle of kids and animals who were running up and down the footpaths. Rosie and Lady were among the more well-behaved examples that he saw, and he trusted them both to let them get a bit ahead of him and Sherlock. It was rare for them to have time together to simply hold hands and stroll, with nothing to worry about and no obligations requiring them to rush home.

They'd been walking for perhaps a half-mile when Sherlock suddenly tensed and pulled away from him, turning to scan the open areas on either side of the path. "Where'd they go?"

"What?" John's good mood immediately fled, as numerous horrors passed through his mind, before he spied Rosie and Lady not far away, near a hedge of low brambly bushes, their branches gone bare for the season. He shouted Rosie's name, the momentary panic he'd felt making his voice a bit sharper than the situation probably warranted.

"Sorry!" Rosie yelled back. "She pulled me! I couldn't stop her."

Sherlock set out across the muddy, winter-dead grass and John followed. "Probably chasing a squirrel or something," he muttered as they caught up with Rosie and the dog.

"Not a squirrel," Sherlock said, reaching down and dragging Lady backwards away from the hedge. 

John frowned as Rosie dropped to her knees, then wiggled her way underneath the branches. She emerged a moment later holding a bundle of brown and black fur. 

"It's a kitten!" she announced. "Look how small it is!" 

John looked at it. While it wasn't a newborn, it was small enough to fit completely in her two hands, and Rosie was far from being a large child. Rather than trying to escape her grasp, the kitten began to lick at her fingers.

Lady made a sad, whimpering noise and flopped down to lie on Sherlock's feet. He scratched the underside of her muzzle and smiled at John. "Someone is jealous."

"Don't know why. She's certainly got a better life than living rough under a hedge."

Rosie hugged the kitten close to her chest. "She's not living rough anymore—we're taking her home!"

"Wha—oh, no, we've already got a pet, thank you very much." John crossed his arms over his chest and stepped closer to Sherlock, hoping for his support. "Besides, its owner is probably looking for it right now."

"More likely someone dumped a litter they didn't want in the park," Sherlock said. He handed Lady's lead to John and knelt down on the ground, reaching one long arm into the hedge. "Yep. There are more." He proceed to pull three more tiny kittens out into the grass.

"Daddy!" Rosie screeched, bouncing up and down on her toes. "There's a whole family!"

"Oh, no. No. One kitten. We can keep one kitten and the rest we find other homes for or they go to a shelter." John clamped his mouth shut before he could say anything else he would regret. Why had he just agreed to keep a kitten?

"Okay!" Rosie kissed the one she was holding and he knew why he had agreed. "Her name is Ginger because she looks like a gingerbread man."

"Burnt gingerbread," John muttered. "It's more black than brown."

"Tortoiseshell," Sherlock said. "Which means she probably is a girl. Looks like you're going to outnumber us, Rosie."

Rosie laughed and spun in a circle, nearly losing her footing in the slippery grass.

John put a hand on her arm to steady her. "What, are you an expert on cats, now?" he said to Sherlock.

"Of course I am. These look to be about eight weeks old, and they were clearly raised around humans." Sherlock gathered up the three other kittens into his arms. "We can give one to Molly and the other two to Mycroft for Christmas."

"Mycroft?" John held Lady by the collar, but while she did seem interested in the kittens, she wasn't remotely aggressive toward them.

"Yes. He pretends he doesn't like pets but he's secretly a cat person, didn't you know that?"

John laughed and shook his head. "Come on. We'll have to stop and buy some food for them on the way home." He tugged at Lady's lead and turned around, ready to take his slightly larger family back home to Baker Street.


	13. Frost

"Come on in," John called out, knowing it was Mycroft at the door to the flat. There was no mistaking the tap of his umbrella, or the annoyingly precise way he knocked.

The door opened and John was proved right. Mycroft stood frowning in the doorway. "Sherlock was abducted off the street not even a week ago and he's still not locking the door to the flat?"

"They caught the guys who grabbed him, right?"

"Yes. We did." Mycroft looked away from him, toward the fireplace. 

John shrugged and picked Rosie up off the floor; it was chilly with the door open. "Door to the street was locked, wasn't it?"

"Yes. Mrs. Hudson let me in."

"Hm. Surprised you don't have a key."

"I do. I just chose not to use it. Where is Sherlock?"

"He's having a shower. Here, hold Rosie for a minute and I'll go put some water on for tea." He handed Rosie off before Mycroft could object. She'd been in a mood all day, and if she wanted to scream at Mycroft for a while, John didn't mind. He saw her take a deep breath that looked like a precursor to a full-on cry, but Mycroft shifted her easily to one hip and she grabbed hold of the front of his coat and began to babble at him. He raised his eyebrows as if listening intently to her and John was reminded that Mycroft would have been old enough to hold Sherlock like that when they were children. Sherlock, and also Eurus. "Er, you can put her in the travel cot if you'd like. She likes to play with her blocks in there."

John stepped into the kitchen while Mycroft crossed the room to Rosie's cot. He put her down into it, trying to encourage her to sit and play, but of course she picked up as many of the plastic blocks as she could and then wobbled to her feet, dropping half of them in the process.

"You'll want to get out of firing range," John called out, just as the first of the blocks went sailing in Mycroft's direction. "That's why she has plastic ones instead of those nice wooden blocks you gave her."

"Rosamund. We don't throw things at people, Rosamund. No throwing."

John clicked the kettle on and came back out into the sitting room. "Call her Rosie, please. We're trying to teach her to say her own name."

Mycroft wrinkled his nose. "Rosie. Is that the name her mother preferred for herself before her...career change?"

John inhaled and exhaled very slowly and made himself unclench his fist. "Maybe you don't need to stay for tea. I'll let Sherlock know you stopped by."

Mycroft took a step back, hands spread out as if to placate John. "No, no. I apologize. I didn't come here to provoke you, believe it or not. I—" He interrupted himself, tilting his head toward the kitchen and Sherlock's bedroom. "Does Sherlock always shower this early in the evening?"

"What? No." The sudden change in topic didn’t faze John, given how accustomed he was to Sherlock and his brother. "Rosie dropped her fork at dinner, and then when he bent down to pick it up for her, she dumped her whole bowl of spaghetti on his head."

"Tomato sauce?"

"Yep." John couldn’t help grinning at the memory, and saw Mycroft's lips twitch into the faintest of smiles. 

"Da-da!" Rosie shrieked, and John began to pick up the blocks she had thrown from the cot. 

Mycroft didn’t offer to help, but then John wouldn't have expected him to. He adjusted the fall of his overcoat and said, "I suppose there's no need for me to stay, if you’ll pass on a message to Sherlock for me."

"Of course. I love being a message service. That's one of the reasons I stick around."

"And we all appreciate your usefulness. Would you please remind Sherlock that he needs to reply to Mummy's Christmas invitation? She's been complaining to me for days that she hasn't heard from him."

John didn't ask why their mother didn't just speak to Sherlock directly; he was sure that she'd been trying and Sherlock hadn't bothered answering any of her calls. "I'll let him know. I mean, I assume he is going. He asked me if I was planning to go."

"And are you? Planning to go? With Sherlock?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, I don't have anywhere else to go for Christmas. Mrs. Hudson will be out of town and—" He waved his hand vaguely in the air.

"Yes. I understand. And you will be bringing Rosie?"

"Of course. What else would I do with her?"

Mycroft nodded. "It will be helpful to have a young child there this year, I think. Should be a useful distraction, at least, even if it doesn't completely eliminate the inevitable holiday tensions. Ah, and, no guns this year, please, John."

John gave him an even stare. "I have no plans to shoot anyone."

Mycroft met his stare silently for a moment, then turned and picked up his umbrella from its spot by the door. "Anyway. One of you does need to respond to her, and let her know you will be attending together. She'll need to coordinate sleeping arrangements, and ensure there is enough food for everyone. An email will suffice, but she does want a written reply.”

"Jesus, Mycroft. Your family is...." John shook his head. 

"You have no idea." Mycroft tipped his head. "Well, perhaps you do have some idea, by now, I suppose. I would recommend distancing yourself from us while you still can, but I'm afraid it may already be too late." He smiled, showing too many teeth and John could see a ghost of family resemblance between him and Sherlock. "Good luck, John. And please do tell Sherlock I stopped by."


	14. A Beautiful Sight

Sherlock didn't often stay up all night any more, but once in a while old habits re-emerged and he found himself caught up in the details of an intriguing case. Tonight's had resolved itself perfectly, with the falsely-accused thief being exonerated by her secretary's meticulous record-keeping, and the real culprit being caught as he was loading up his wife's hatchback to flee in the dead of night. Sherlock turned over all his evidence to Scotland Yard and went home, walking through the quiet streets as a light snow fell around him. It would be gone as soon as the sun rose, but that was still hours away.

Spending most of a day and night away from John and Rosie was not Sherlock's ideal, and a lack of sleep took its toll on his body as it hadn't when he was younger. But it was worth it, occasionally, to experience the rush of satisfaction that came with solving a clever case, to say nothing of the beauty of the city asleep beneath a thin, clean veneer of fresh snow.

The flat was silent as he climbed the stairs; he didn't even hear a sound from Lady, which meant she was probably asleep in Rosie's room. In another hour or so she'd awaken, and soon after John would get up to take her outside, but for now everyone slept. 

Sherlock undressed in the bathroom and tiptoed into the bedroom, careful not to wake John. Enough light from the street bled through the curtains that he could see John's profile clearly, curled on his side, his back to Sherlock. He twitched once when Sherlock lifted the blanket to climb in next to him. Sherlock paused for a moment so as not to disturb him further and took advantage of the chance to admire the way the thin cotton of the vest John wore stretched over the firm, slender muscles of his shoulders and back. 

He settled on his side behind John, eyes fixed on the slightly shaggy hair at the back of his neck, colorless and soft-looking in the dim light. He glanced over at the glowing light of the clock next to the bed. Just gone five o'clock. John would be awake by six. Maybe Sherlock could stay awake until then. Or maybe John wouldn't mind waking up a bit early. Sherlock lifted his left hand and settled it along John's ribs. John's breathing changed, and Sherlock slid his hand forward, successfully urging him to roll onto his back. 

"Mm, home now?" John mumbled.

"Obviously." He squirmed closer so he could rest his chin on John's bicep. John brought his other hand up and brushed it along Sherlock's cheek, and Sherlock exhaled into the touch. Yes, this could be a very good way to end a long night. John's fingers wandered up into his hair and Sherlock lifted his head, about to try for a kiss, when a loud pounding noise from above interrupted him. Rosie. And Lady, both running down the stairs. 

"Daddy! Sherlock! Wake up! Wake up! It's snowing!"

Sherlock rolled onto his back and let his head fall heavily onto the pillow. He listened to the patter of small feet racing through the flat, interspersed with sharp, excited barks from the dog, and wondered whether he'd be able to get any sleep at all. Suddenly he was a lot more tired than he had realized.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd be willing to raise the rating on this fic so I could write a smutty little ficlet or two, but kids are just so exhausting, it's probably never going to happen. Sorry, Sherlock. She'll move out in another 10 years or so.


	15. Toy Soldier

"Don't you wish you'd had a little boy, too, Dad?" Rosie dropped down next to John on the sofa, patting him on the leg. 

"Nope," John replied. "Happy with exactly what I got." 

"Even if you were a bit of a surprise," Sherlock added, and John elbowed him in the side. 

"Watch it, that's my bad hip," Sherlock said.

"I'll give you a bad hip," John said, then leaned over to plant a kiss on his cheek. 

Sherlock sniffed and crossed his arms over his chest, wriggling back against the sofa cushions. After a moment he sighed and said, "Rosie, you were a very pleasant surprise."

Rosie rolled her eyes and they all three returned to watching Max play with his toy soldiers on the coffee table in front of them.

"Don't look much like the toy soldiers I had when I was his age," John said. Max's soldiers were thick and chunky, slightly larger than his four-year-old's hands, and colored more brightly than even the most brilliant army dress uniform.

"Yours were metal and painted with lead," Sherlock said.

"They were not! I had the green plastic ones. Like in _Toy Story_."

Sherlock frowned as if he didn't understand the reference.

"Don't give me that. You watched that film a hundred times when Rosie was little."

Sherlock grinned. "Guilty."

"I loved _Toy Story_ ," Rosie said, then turned to her son. "Max, why don't you show Grandad and Papa what else you got from Father Christmas?"

Max dropped the chubby plastic soldiers he'd been lining up for battle and ran over to the tree, tossing aside boxes that Rosie had just finished neatening up. "Look, Grandad! I got a doctor kit so now I can be just like you!" He yanked open a black bag that looked vaguely like something a doctor may have carried a hundred years ago and pulled out a toy stethoscope, looping it around his neck.

"Here, you have to put it in your ears," Sherlock said, and leaned forward to help Max adjust the toy correctly. "Does it work?" he said, and held it against his own chest. 

Max's eyes lit up. "I can hear your heart, Papa!"

Sherlock widened his own eyes. "I have a heart?" he asked, which set Max to giggling. 

"Show them what else you got, sweetie," Rosie prompted.

"I got a big box full of clothes and it's boring!"

"No, I mean you got soldiers and a doctor's kit just like Grandad, but what did you get that you can use to be like Papa?"

"Oh! Bugs!" Max darted over to the tree and dug around in a pile of tissue paper while John wondered exactly how far Rosie would have gone to get her son something to help him be just like Papa. Plastic or rubber bugs? Dead butterflies mounted for display? Live crickets or bees? Surely not.

"Yes, well, we won't be able to catch any bugs until the springtime, but—" 

"I can look at other things before then!" Max shouted. He ran back to the sofa, proudly displaying an oversized plastic magnifying glass and a matching collection jar that had a layer of gray fluff at the bottom of it. "Look, I found some dust under the telly and I put in the jar so I can look at it!"

"Oh, that's wonderful, Max!" Sherlock held up the jar, squinting at its contents against the light coming through the window. "Looks like you've collected quite a bit of cat hair. Shall we dump it out and see what else makes up the dust?"

"Er, let's have dinner first?" Rosie reached across John to grab the jar out of Sherlock's hands. "Daddy's been in the kitchen working hard to get all the food ready. Let's go see if he needs any help, shall we?"

"No, I want to inspect the dust," Sherlock said, and John elbowed him in the side again.

Max dropped the magnifying glass, sending it skidding across the floor. "There's two kinds of potatoes!" he announced, as he ran toward the kitchen. "Come on, everybody. Let's eat!"


	16. Season's Greetings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 16\. Season's Greetings: Since I made up these prompts, I think I am allowed to say that I found this one to be particularly vague and meaningless and decided that anything even slightly seasonal would fill it.

Sherlock took off after he solved the case, leaving John to tie up the loose ends at Scotland Yard. Mrs. Hudson had texted that Rosie was asleep and she didn't mind keeping her a while longer, so John wasn't too upset, but it would've been nice if Sherlock had waited for him. They could have shared a cab.

Greg came into the office just as John was leaving. He held the door open for him, then followed him out into the hallway. "Thanks for your help tonight, John. Good to have you and Sherlock back in the game."

"Thanks. It's good to be back, I guess." John squared his shoulders and thought about it. Yes, it was good to be back at the Yard, solving cases with Sherlock, even getting stuck with the paperwork. Better than sitting home with only an eleven-month-old for company, wondering where he'd gone wrong with his life.

"So we'll see you at the party on Friday then?"

John frowned. "Oh, the party." He'd forgotten all about it—it had been years since he'd been to the annual Scotland Yard Christmas party. Back before Sherlock had jumped. Another lifetime. "I don't know. I'm not sure how many evenings I can ask Mrs. Hudson to watch Rosie this week."

"Oh, no, you can bring Rosie with you."

"Thanks, but I don't know how good she'd be around so many strangers." 

"Nah, she'll be fine. She likes me well enough, and Molly will be there. Sally's good with kids, too. You won't have trouble finding people to take her off your hands for a few hours."

"Tempting. We'll see." John gave him a smile that was mostly sincere and started to walk toward the lifts. 

"Unless you've got other plans?"

"Plans?" John stopped and turned around to face him. "For a Friday night? Greg, I'm a middle-aged, single father of an almost-one-year-old. What kind of plans do you think I would have?"

"You're not middle-aged yet, John. And I don't know, maybe you and Sherlock are gonna get up to something."

John laughed. "Right. I'll answer his email for him while he complains about not having any cases. That's all we ever do." He tipped his head, realizing he wasn't quite being fair. "He plays the violin for Rosie—she likes that. Sometimes when she's cranky he plays until she falls asleep and we just spend the night there so I don't have to try to get her home without waking up. "

Greg blinked at him, looking confused. "Aren't you living there again?"

"Er, no? I've still got the house."

"Why? I mean, no offense, but why? Flat's all repaired now, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but...I've got a house."

Greg shook his head. "All right. Just seems like it would make more sense for you to live back at Baker Street again. You're there all the time anyway, aren't you? And Mrs. Hudson is there to watch Rosie for you. Plus—you know."

"Sorry, what?" John lifted his chin, thinking he probably knew what he meant but a little surprised, since Greg was one of the few people who'd never assumed he and Sherlock were a couple.

"You know. Sherlock's there. You should be there, too. You both do better when you're together."

John frowned at him. It wasn't exactly what he'd expected to hear, and it wasn't untrue, either. He and Sherlock had certainly had plenty of arguments and disagreements and downright fights over the years, but the worst of those had come at the times when they'd pushed each other away first.

Greg shrugged. "Ignore me if you want. I know you will anyway. But I'm just saying, you're both happier when you get to be around each other. And personally, my life is a lot easier when you and Sherlock are both happy." He grinned. "I'll let you leave now. Thanks again for helping out with the case tonight."

John nodded, still turning over Greg's words in his head, testing to see how accurate they were. He couldn't stand here in the hallway all night thinking about Sherlock, though. "I do need to get home. Merry Christmas, if I don't see you again before then."

"Nope, I'm not saying that back to you. Because we are going to see each other again, on Friday when you come to the party."

John rolled his eyes. "Maybe. We'll see." He turned and started to walk away.

"Seven o'clock! We're collecting gifts for the children's hospital so bring a toy to donate!"

John lifted a hand in acknowledgement as he continued to walk down the hall. Maybe he'd go to the party. Not alone, though. He'd bring Rosie, sure, but if he was going to a Christmas party at the Yard, he was sure as hell going to make sure Sherlock went, too.


	17. Warm and Cozy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had 600 words of this done by 4 pm and then deleted most of them and wrote 800 new ones after 9:30 pm, so the lesson here is don't try to get work done earlier.

"So, obviously, Mr. Penk could not have murdered his wife if he was in Bristol with his mistress at the time, which means his sister was right, and it was Naya's ex-boyfriend who killed her." Sherlock tossed the stolen mobile phone, with its record of both spouse's affairs, at Lestrade, who caught it and shook his head in disbelief.

"How did you narrow all that down so quickly? It would've taken us days to track down where everyone was that night."

Sherlock sighed. "I'm a lot smarter than you," he said. "I can think more quickly." He turned past the small crowd of police officers who had gathered in the victim's kitchen to listen to his final chain of deductions, looking for John. Ah, there he was, leaning in the doorway. Sherlock started toward him, pushing past Donovan and a couple of officers who looked too young to shave. 

"Amazing," John said. "You really outdid yourself on this one, Sherlock. That was brilliant, really and truly brilliant." 

Sherlock frowned down at him for a moment. He hadn't found the case to be particularly difficult, aside from the fact that there were nearly a dozen suspects with a plausible motive and every single one of them had reasons to lie. But John's effusive praise—Sherlock checked to make sure he wasn't being sarcastic, but no, he was sincere, based on the way he was standing, his body turned toward Sherlock, hands relaxed at his sides, face open and— _Stop_. The sudden urge he had to sweep John into his arms and plant a kiss on that face was nearly uncontrollable. He shoved his hands into his pockets and took a step back. 

John's pleased grin slipped a bit. "Sherlock? You okay?"

The sound of his voice. _The sound of his voice_. Still impressed at Sherlock's performance, but also concerned, as he had been on that night a few weeks ago after the kidnapping incident. The memory of John's hands on his shoulders was too much. Sherlock wanted them to be touching each other right now, wanted it as much as he'd ever wanted any drug in his veins, but even if he'd thought John might feel the same, there were far too many other people surrounding them for it to be possible. 

"I'm fine," he managed to reply. He pitched his voice louder for everyone in the room to hear. "I'm sure you lot can manage to track down the boyfriend and arrest him without my help." He turned and left, sweeping past John without another word. John would find his own way home, and Sherlock hoped he himself would be able to calm his unruly emotions before he got there.

He did feel a bit more settled when he got to Baker Street, though still not as calm as he would have liked. A drink or two might help, but he knew of another way to reduce stress and anxiety, one he would never have suspected before, but that he had quickly learned to embrace.

Rosie didn’t cry when he lifted her from the tiny cot in Mrs. Hudson’s flat. Her eyes fluttered open just a bit and she snuffled against his coat when he held her to his chest, then she was asleep again, warm and solid in his arms. He whispered goodbye to Mrs. Hudson and carried Rosie upstairs, cradling her so she wouldn’t react to his movement as he climbed the steps and pushed open the door. She didn’t stir. He nudged the door shut behind him with one foot, and eyed her travel cot where it sat empty in the corner of the room. He had perfected the skill of putting her down without waking her, but tonight he had no intention of letting her sleep alone. 

He left the lights turned off; it was dark but there was enough light from the street outside for him to see. He stepped out of his shoes and carefully lay down on the sofa, his right hand never leaving Rosie’s back as he positioned himself on the cushions. He unbuttoned his Belstaff one-handed, gently shifting her from side to side so he could peel his coat away from his chest and she wouldn't have to lie on the rough wool.

Once they were settled comfortably, he closed his eyes and let himself relax. Between the coat and the 18 pounds of sleeping baby on his chest, he was quite warm, and he let the heat envelop him, drawing him down into a cozy, half-conscious cocoon. John would be home soon but that was no cause for concern. Of course John would be home soon, even if he didn't live here anymore. John would come home and lift Rosie from his chest and tell him to go to bed, and it would be too late for John and Rosie to leave, so they would sleep here tonight, and when Sherlock woke in the morning they'd be in the kitchen, eating porridge and bananas, and they would offer some to Sherlock, but he would just have coffee, and they would sit at the table together and laugh and teach Rosie new words and everything would be just as it should, almost perfect, and better than Sherlock had ever thought he deserved.


	18. Celebration

"Oh, she’s wearing the dress I bought her!" Molly handed Greg the glass of punch she'd been sipping and ran across the room, taking small steps since she was wearing heels and a dress herself. John had just arrived at the party, holding Rosie in his arms.

John smiled and started to hand Rosie over to her; she knew he loved his daughter, but he never passed up the chance to let someone else watch her for a while. Not that she blamed him—seeing how exhausted he'd been for the past year was enough to make her glad she'd never gotten around to having kids herself.

"Come here, sweetie.” Molly held her arms out for Rosie, but before John could pass her off, Sherlock swept in from behind him and plucked her away.

"Sherlock!" Molly and John both protested, but Sherlock swanned away, carrying Rosie toward the table loaded with biscuits and sweets.

"Sorry." John shrugged at her. "You know what he's like."

"Yeah, I do. It's okay, I get to see her every Tuesday and Thursday. I was just hoping to get a look at her in the dress."

"I'll try to get a picture for you," John said, and Molly could tell he was itching to turn away and chase after Sherlock—and Rosie—so she let him go, heading back over to retrieve her drink from Greg. 

It was a pretty good party. Molly knew she was never going to be completely comfortable at this sort of social function—it wasn't like being at work, where she was in charge and knew how to handle whatever situation came up—but if she drank enough to relax but not so much that she made a fool of herself, she could usually have a good time. And the fact that she spent most of the evening with Greg helped, too. She wasn't sure if she would ever be interested in something serious with him—she'd never heard anyone speak positively about dating a police officer—but the way he looked at her when she was all dressed up sure gave her ego a boost.

She was on her third glass of punch when Sally Donovan came over and sat down at the table she was sharing with Greg. "Molly, just out of curiosity, are you still nursing your crush on the Freak?"

"What? No, I—"

"Donovan, I told you to never call him that again." Greg banged his beer bottle down on the table, leaning toward Sally.

Sally met his gaze, then shook her head. "Sorry. I know. But have either of you seen what he's up to tonight?" She waved her hand toward the other side of the room, and Molly had visions of some horribly inappropriate experiment Sherlock had brought to the party, probably something with a dead body.

She and Greg both turned around to look. It took her a moment to find Sherlock, because he'd taken off his coat and he wasn't standing by himself in a corner. No, he was dancing. To a popular, upbeat Christmas song. With John. Well, with John and Rosie. John was holding her on one hip and Sherlock had one hand on her tiny back and the other one on John's free arm.

"Huh. Look at that." Greg lifted his beer bottle again. "We gonna have to bring back the old office pool on those two?"

"They're raising a child together," Sally said. "I think it's a bit late for a pool."

"No, it's not..." Molly began, and then trailed off. She didn't really know what it was, between Sherlock and John. She knew they'd made up with each other, after they'd both been so lost when Mary died. She knew they both loved each other but had no idea what that meant to either of them. She didn't think they knew, either. 

"John's planning to move back to Baker Street," Greg said.

"He is?" Molly thought that would be a great idea, because Sherlock's flat was a lot more convenient for her on the days when she had to pick up Rosie to watch her.

"Well, I told him he should. So if he's smart, he's planning on it. Everyone should listen to me when I give them life advice."

Molly and Sally both laughed, and they all watched as the song ended and Sherlock and John stepped closer to each other, hugging Rosie in between them. Molly looked away. Maybe they were hugging each other, or maybe they just wanted to cuddle Rosie. Either way, she thought it would be all right, because that little girl had two men who both loved her very much. 

Her phone chimed in her clutch and she reached for the bag so she could see who had texted her. John. He'd sent the photo he'd promised: Rosie displayed in Sherlock's arms, laughing with glee, crumbs of gingerbread down the front of her dress. Molly smiled and then tapped on the photo to edit it. She zoomed in and cut Sherlock out of the frame, then saved it to her phone's gallery. 

"Want another drink?" Greg asked her, as Sally got up from the table and left.

"Sure, why not," Molly replied. 

"Another punch or something stronger?"

Molly looked up at him and decided. "Whatever you want. Surprise me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not intend to write a Scotland Yard party because the resolution with John & Sherlock will be precipitated by something else, but then I went and wrote a chapter with Greg inviting John to the party so I figured I better write something. This might be my first time ever writing Molly's POV?? I've written Sally a few times and quite a bit of Mary but not Molly. Huh. (And that one Mary/Molly fic was Mary's POV.)


	19. Silent Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jumping forward in time again after those last few chapters with baby Rosie.

Sherlock woke up when John kicked all the blankets off them both. The cat gave a hiss of displeasure from her spot at the foot of the bed and Sherlock squirmed down the mattress to retrieve the covers, pulling them back up over himself. 

John sighed.

"What's wrong?" Sherlock cocooned himself in the sheet and first blanket so John wouldn't be able to uncover him again.

"Can't sleep. It's too quiet."

Too quiet to sleep. That sounded like something Sherlock himself would say, and John would tell him it made no sense. Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, enjoying the soft warmth of their bed, then made himself wake up all the way. He reached out to click on the small bedside lamp, then squished his pillow back against the headboard and sat up against it. "She'll be back in eight weeks, at the end of term."

"I know, I know." 

"Also, we can go visit her this weekend if you'd like."

"Rosie doesn't want to spend time with two old men on her first weekend at uni."

Sherlock rolled onto his side. John was lying on his back; Sherlock reached out and took one of his hands, threading their fingers together and bringing both their hands to rest on John's chest. "She will miss us. She just doesn't know it yet."

John pulled his hand free from Sherlock's but then rested it on Sherlock's wrist, still on his chest. "I guess so. I'm just used to having her around all the time. I'll adjust."

"You could find a woman of child-bearing age and have another go at fatherhood."

"No." John dug his fingernails into Sherlock's skin.

"We could get a new puppy?"

"That...I might consider." Lady had been gone for almost a year now; while she had technically been Sherlock's dog, he knew that John missed her, since he had been the one to take care of her most of the time.

"Okay. New puppy it is. We'll look for one this weekend. Let Rosie settle in a bit before we drive out there for a visit."

John exhaled and stroked Sherlock's hand. "Sorry I'm being all maudlin tonight. Just hit me hard, for some reason."

"It's all right." Sherlock pulled his hand away so he could turn over and switch off the light again. He stretched his legs out to nudge the cat off the bed and then rolled back to face John. "You know what we could do, now that we're alone?"

John slid over on the mattress to meet him. "I've got some ideas."

"Mm. Let's try all your ideas. Loudly, because there's no one here to hear us."


	20. Home

After the party, John, with Rosie bundled in his arms and screaming her displeasure at having to leave, followed Sherlock out to a waiting cab. 

"Baker Street," Sherlock told the driver, and John didn't object. Sherlock couldn't blame him—John’s house was farther away, and with Rosie in the mood she was in, two hours past her bedtime and having dined on nothing but sugar all evening, minimizing travel time with her certainly did seem wise. And of course Sherlock didn't mind having them stay for the night. 

He braced himself for a twenty-minute cab ride made infinitely longer by an unhappy child, but instead Rosie fell asleep as soon as the car started moving. By the time they got home, Sherlock was sure that John was dozing, as well, though he opened his eyes when Sherlock elbowed him in the side. Rosie didn't wake when Sherlock unbuckled her and lifted her from the child seat. He let John pay the driver and open the front door for them, then led the way up the stairs to the flat. 

Once inside, John turned on the fairy lights on the mantel and the tree so they could see without making the room so bright it disturbed Rosie. John held his hands out to take her, but Sherlock shook his head. "I've got her." She was asleep against his chest and the more they passed her around, the greater the likelihood of her waking. She did need to be changed, though—even if they wanted to let her sleep in her dress and tights, a clean nappy was a necessity. But after nearly a year of caring for her, Sherlock knew what to do. He lowered her onto her changing mat, keeping one hand on her chest so it would feel like she was still being held. John joined him, taking her shoes and tights as Sherlock pulled them off one-handed and passing him a clean nappy, which Sherlock slid beneath and around her, fastening it before she had a chance to feel cold. 

Rosie blinked her eyes open and let out a few sleepy whimpers, but Sherlock quieted her, whisper-singing one of the Christmas songs from the party to her as John shimmied a fleece sleepsuit onto her legs. Sherlock pulled her dress off as John got the sleepsuit up over her torso, and in unison they each poked one of her arms through the sleeves. Rosie made a half-hearted attempt to sit up on the changing mat, and John swept her into his arms, humming the song Sherlock had been singing. 

"Da-da," Rosie murmured, and rested her head on John's shoulder. He stepped away from the changing mat, headed to the corner where the travel cot she slept in when she was here sat. 

Sherlock watched them walk away, just a few steps across the dimly-lit room, and suddenly knew without a doubt what he had to do. "You should move back in with me," he said, to John's back, and the soft, loose curls of Rosie's head that peeked over his shoulder. 

"I—" John paused, hugging Rosie tight to his chest, and Sherlock tried to prepare to be gracious in the face of rejection. John turned around to look at him. "I need to sell the house." 

Sherlock's breath caught. He'd had a whole list of logical reasons why John and Rosie should live here, plus several that were nothing but sentiment, but he offered none of them now. Instead he slowly exhaled and nodded. "I can help you get it ready to sell." 

John laughed. "Not sure you're the man for that. There's a lot of cleaning and neutral-color decorating involved." 

Sherlock's smile came slowly and sincerely. "I'll watch Rosie while you do that bit." 

"All right," John said, and nodded. "All right." He swayed back and forth with Rosie a few times—Sherlock often caught himself doing the same thing, sometimes when he wasn't even holding her—and then turned around again to take her to the cot. 

Sherlock heard John whisper to her as he put her down to sleep. "We're gonna come live here, Rosie," he said, and Sherlock closed his eyes, forced himself to breath normally. He felt as high as he'd ever been without taking a single drug, and also as solidly grounded as it was possible to be. Finally, finally, John was coming home.


	21. Hopes and Fears

\- I hope Sherlock remembered to RSVP to his parents for Christmas.

* I hope spending two days with my family doesn't make John decide to cut and run.

\- I hope I can remember which dress Mrs. Holmes sent Rosie so she can wear it on Christmas.

* I hope the dress Mummy sent Rosie fits her.

\- I hope Sherlock brings his violin.

* I hope John wears the brown cardigan with the blue checked shirt.

\- I hope we actually get to eat dinner this year.

* I hope no one expects me to eat Brussels sprouts.

\- I hope Sherlock doesn't drug anyone.

* I hope no one needs to use John's gun.

\- I hope Rosie behaves when we go to church on Christmas.

* I hope they don't insist I go to church with them.

\- I hope Mycroft doesn't stay for very long.

* I hope Mycroft and Mummy and Daddy don't argue about Eurus too much.

\- I hope I can get the house on the market as soon as we get back.

* I hope John can sell his house quickly so he can move in.

\- I hope Sherlock doesn't regret asking us to move in.

* I hope John doesn't regret agreeing to move in.

\- I hope moving will be good for Rosie, too.

* I hope living with me doesn't ruin Rosie's chances at having a happy childhood.

\- I hope I get to touch him again someday.

* I hope he touches me again someday.

\- I hope he wants to touch me, too.

* I hope he lets me touch him, too.

\- I hope I'm doing the right thing.

* I hope I'm doing the right thing.

_I hope_


	22. Feast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how but this ended up being my longest chapter so far.

Rosie always loved Christmas Day, of course, but this year was even more exciting than usual, because instead of going to Gram and Grandad's for dinner, Gram and Grandad were coming here to Baker Street. Sherlock didn't want to do it at first, but Daddy convinced him that they should, that it would be nice for Gram not to have to make a big dinner for once. Daddy said he and Sherlock knew how to cook, so it wouldn't be that hard, and it would be a good change from spending the morning driving out to the country like they did every other year.

After they opened presents, Daddy and Sherlock went into the kitchen to start getting things ready to cook. Rosie wanted to help but they said it was too crowded for three people at once and they were both sounding kind of cranky so she decided to start playing the new Mario game she'd got for Christmas instead. If Daddy and Sherlock were busy they wouldn't tell her she could only play video games for a little while like they usually did. 

She'd only got to level three when Sherlock came out of the kitchen, dragging Lady by the collar. "Take her," he said, sounding way too grumpy for Christmas. Rosie set down her Nintendo for a second and put her arms around Lady while Sherlock went over to the hook by the door that held her lead. She started to wag her tail, which made it hard for Rosie to hold her because her whole body was moving. "No," Sherlock said. "No walk. Sit." He snapped the lead onto Lady's collar and handed it to Rosie. "Keep her in here. We're trying to stuff the turkey and she won't stay out of the way. We should have had it in the oven thirty minutes ago." 

Rosie took the lead from him and stuck her hand through the loop at the end, then slid out of Daddy's armchair to sit on the floor next to Lady. Ginger immediately jumped up to take Rosie's spot on the chair—they'd only had her for a few weeks, but the kitten had already decided the chair was her favorite place to be whenever Daddy wasn't in it. 

Rosie went back to her game, but didn't get very much further in it before she heard a weird noise. She looked down at Lady, who had fallen asleep with her head underneath Sherlock's chair, but it wasn't her. Then she heard it again, sort of like a weird coughing noise. It was Ginger. 

"Daddy! Something's wrong with Ginger!" Rosie put her game down again and reached for the cat, who jumped over the arm of the chair, away from her.

Daddy stuck his head out from the kitchen, frowning. "Sounds like she's trying to vomit."

"Ew!" Rosie scooted away from Ginger, startling Lady, who woke up and barked a few times. 

"No, it's pretty normal for cats. She's probably trying to bring up a hairball."

Rosie wrinkled her nose. She slipped Lady's lead off her hand so she could move around the chair on her hands and knees to get another look at Ginger. "There's something hanging out of her mouth. I think it's some ribbon from this morning."

"Oh, Rosie!" Daddy waved the large spoon he was holding in the air, then tossed it onto the worktop and marched out into the sitting room. "I told you to make sure everything got picked up and thrown away."

"I did!"

"Well, you must have missed something. Grab her."

Rosie lunged for Ginger and got her fingers on her but the kitten was too fast and slipped away, darting behind one of Sherlock's old stereo speakers next to the fireplace.

"Oh, for...." Daddy walked around to stand on one side of the speaker. "You try to grab her from over there and I'll get her if she runs this way." 

Ginger made another hacking sound as Rosie reached for her. She could see the ribbon hanging from the cat's mouth still—it was gold, and had drool running down it, yuck. She stretched out her arm to try to pull it out of her mouth but suddenly Lady was in the way, trying to push past her to see what was going on, and Rosie lost her balance, falling forward so that she almost landed right on Ginger. The cat hissed and jumped, launching herself up and over the speaker and the pile of file folders that were stacked on top of it. The folders slid everywhere as she climbed over them, spilling papers in every direction. Lady started barking again and Rosie shoved her out of the way so she could chase after Ginger, who was running with the long piece of ribbon still trailing from her mouth. 

"Get her, get her!" Daddy shouted. "If she swallows that long of a piece we'll need to take her to the vet!"

"I'm trying!" Rosie shouted back, as Ginger ran underneath the Christmas tree in the corner of the room. 

"What is going on out here?" Sherlock came out of the kitchen, wearing a dirty white apron over his suit. 

"Help us catch Ginger," Daddy said. "She's got a piece of Christmas ribbon in her mouth and I don't fancy paying the vet bill for her to have surgery to remove it."

Sherlock wiped his hands down the front of his apron and joined them in the sitting room. "Rosie, you crawl underneath the tree after her and we'll grab her when she runs away from you."

Rosie did as he said. She thought she was going to be able to catch Ginger now, because the cat stopped again to cough some more, but as soon as Rosie reached for her she ran again, only this time she ran straight up the tree. 

"No!" Daddy shouted, and grabbed the tree just as it started to tip. He said at least three bad words while Ginger clutched at the trunk of the tree, about as high up as Rosie was tall. 

Sherlock said another bad word, though not as bad as Daddy's words, and then he reached into the branches and caught Ginger, prying her paws off so she didn't drag the whole tree over as he pulled her out from it. He took one step back from the tree and tucked her under his left arm, then pried open her mouth with that hand so he could pull the ribbon out with the other. "Got it!" he announced, and tossed Ginger onto the sofa. She hissed and then ran behind the bookcase.

Daddy let go of the tree carefully, stepping next to Sherlock. "Let me see." He squinted at the wet piece of ribbon and said, "I think you got all of it—the end doesn't look chewed. She should be fine."

Rosie tried to turn around so she could crawl back out from behind the tree, but there wasn't much room, so she went backwards, instead. There were pine needles all over the tree skirt—there hadn't been that many on the floor until Ginger had jumped into the tree, but now they were sticking through her leggings and they were sharp. Maybe next year they should buy a fake tree like Daddy always wanted to, even if it wouldn't smell as nice.

Just when she got out from underneath it, there was another crashing sound, even louder than all the crashing sounds Ginger had made. 

"The turkey!" Sherlock shouted, and ran back to the kitchen, with Daddy right behind him. Rosie stood up and went after them—it wasn't Ginger this time, though, because Rosie could see her tail sticking out next to the bookcase still.

When she got to the kitchen she saw what had happened—there was stuffing everywhere, the dish that had held the turkey and stuffing was on the floor, and so was the raw turkey itself, except one of the legs and a big chunk of meat from the top were gone. Lady had the missing pieces in her mouth—she stood at the far end of the kitchen, staring at Sherlock and Daddy.

"You little—" Daddy began, but before he could say more bad words, Sherlock dove forward and grabbed Lady's lead so she couldn't get away. Daddy yanked the turkey out of her mouth, tossing it into the sink.

"Turkey's not bad for dogs," Sherlock said. "There's some risk of salmonella since it's uncooked, and she shouldn't have the bones, but—"

"I'm not letting the dog eat our Christmas dinner!"

"Well, we can't eat it ourselves, now."

Daddy and Sherlock stared at each other for a moment, until Lady started to creep forward toward the meat that was still on the floor in the middle of the kitchen. 

"No!" Sherlock yelled, and then dragged Lady down the hall and shut her in his and Daddy's bedroom.

"What are we going to do for dinner?" Rosie asked.

Sherlock stood over the turkey on the floor. "Cook the part she didn't have in her mouth?" he suggested.

"God, no," Daddy said. "It looks terrible. Half the meat's missing. What would your mum say?"

"She'd probably laugh a lot."

"No. Sherlock. We need to figure out something else. What shops are open?"

"Nothing that sells whole turkeys. We could probably get sandwiches."

"Oh, God." Daddy put his hands up to his mouth like he was trying to hold in more bad words.

"Don't worry, John," Sherlock said, and stepped close to give him a little kiss on the side of his head. "We can fix this. We'll just find something else to cook."

"What? There might be some chicken in the freezer but not enough to feed everyone."

"No." Sherlock brought his fingers up to his chin and was quiet for a minute. Daddy squatted down and started to pick up all the food on the floor and then Sherlock spun around on his heel, pointing at Rosie. "You go downstairs to Mrs. Hudson's flat, you know where the key is. I doubt she'll have any large servings of meat, but maybe we'll get lucky and she'll have a roast in the freezer. If not, we'll just tell everyone we've recently gone vegetarian. See if Mrs. Hudson has some more potatoes, or maybe some rice. We'll make an extra dish or two to serve with what we've already planned."

"Okay," Rosie nodded and turned to head downstairs.

"Oh! Eggplant!" Sherlock shouted after her. "See if she has any! We can make a lasagna; it will seem like we planned it all along. Hurry. Gram and Grandad will be here at noon and knowing Mycroft he could show up at any minute. Go! Go!"

Rosie ran off, glancing at her Mario game and at the cat still hiding next to the bookcase as she passed by. Maybe next year they could go back to having Christmas dinner at Gram and Grandad's house. The drive out to the country really wasn't that bad after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2 more chapters! And don't worry--we'll be back to see what happens with Sherlock and John during Rosie's first Christmas!


	23. Nightmare Before Christmas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much like yesterday's ficlet, this was another long one that I ended up editing after midnight, so please let me know if you see any typos! Enjoy!

John wasn't sure what he had expected when they arrived at the Holmes's house early in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, but it wasn't this.

Mycroft greeted them the moment they stepped inside. "Are you ready to go?" he said to Sherlock.

"Already?" Sherlock passed a still-napping Rosie off to John and then looked at his watch and sighed. "I thought we'd have more time. There was traffic."

"Imagine. Traffic on Christmas Eve. Who would ever have suspected? Where is your violin?"

"I'll get it," Sherlock said, and went back out to the car—Mrs. Hudson's car. She'd let them use it since she was away for the holiday, but the thrill of driving it had been dampened somewhat by the heavy traffic.

John wiped his feet on the doormat and crossed the room so he could set Rosie on the sofa and take off her coat. He wasn't sure if he wanted her to keep sleeping—it was a bit early for her to nap, but she'd dozed off about halfway through the trip here. 

Mycroft came over to stand next to him, so John handed him Rosie's coat and hat as he removed them. Mycroft rolled his eyes before hanging them on the hook by the door. "Since you have Rosamund to look after, I assume you won't be visiting Sherrinford with us today?"

"Sherrinford?" John had picked up Rosie again and now nearly dropped her. "Are you joking? What makes you think I would ever be willing to set foot in that place again?"

Mycroft sniffed. "Very well. The rest of us will be spending a couple of hours with Eurus today, but you have good reason to be excused, I suppose."

"What's that, is it because your sister tried to drown me the last time I saw her?"

Mycroft took a deep breath but before he could say anything, the front door rattled open and Sherlock returned, brandishing his violin case in front of him. He frowned at Mycroft and John. "Where are Mummy and Daddy?"

As if on cue, Mr. and Mrs. Holmes came down the staircase, both dressed in festive holiday attire. "Sherlock! John! Rosie!" Mrs. Holmes exclaimed, and greeted them all much as John had expected, cooing over Rosie and giving both Sherlock and John a hug and a peck on the cheek. But after a few minutes, she and Mr. Holmes retrieved their coats from the hallway and told John to make himself comfortable while they were gone.

Rosie woke up once they had left and John dug in her bag to find a sippy cup and a fresh nappy. He changed her on the floor, reluctant to search through the house to find someplace more appropriate, despite what Mrs. Holmes had said. He was of two minds about the fact that they had left him and Rosie here—it seemed a bit rude to invite a guest over and then leave, but on the other hand he certainly didn't want to go with them to visit Eurus. It would have been nice if Sherlock had told him what they were doing this afternoon, since it had clearly been planned ahead of time. Oh, well. Just another Holmes family surprise. He should be used to that by now. 

He fed Rosie some biscuits and milk and tried not to think about the possibility of Sherlock's entire family being wiped out by their vengeful youngest child. And if that did happen, he hoped there were cousins or something who could handle their estate; dealing with Mary's finances had been complicated enough. 

The house was a little too highly decorated to let Rosie crawl around very much, so John put on the telly and watched cartoons all afternoon with her, waiting for Sherlock and his family to return. He was starting to wonder if he should see about finding something for the two of them for dinner when he heard their car pull into the drive. A few moments later Mycroft came through the door, Sherlock right on his heels, as if they'd been racing to see who could get into the house first. 

Mycroft stopped in the entryway to remove his coat, while Sherlock propped his violin case next to the door and went straight to Rosie, swooping her up from her spot on the floor in front of John. 

John couldn't stop from smiling at the way she wrapped her little arms around Sherlock's head and planted a slobbery kiss on his cheek, and at the way her kiss immediately softened Sherlock's dour expression. He cleared his throat and spoke before Sherlock or Mycroft could notice him staring. "Right. Where are your parents?"

Mycroft made an uncharacteristic grunting noise and Sherlock waved his hand toward the door. "They're coming. Not that Mycroft wouldn't have left them there if he could have." 

John wrinkled his nose, then got up from the sofa to peer out the window. Mr. and Mrs. Holmes were indeed making their way along the path to the house, slowly walking arm-in-arm. John pushed past Mycroft and opened the door for them.

"Thank you, John," Mrs. Holmes said as she stepped in. "Goodness knows our sons have no concern for us. Mycroft in particular."

Mycroft sighed heavily and began to unbutton his coat. "I have apologized repeatedly, if you'll recall."

"It makes no difference. You were still wrong."

John frowned, turning to Sherlock for explanation.

Sherlock tipped his head toward his parents and brother and gently moved Rosie's hand away from his mouth so he could speak. "Eurus. Every time we see her, Mummy and Daddy get angry at Mycroft again. It's starting to become tiresome."

John chuckled without any humor. "Well, they do have good reason to be angry. He lied to them for decades."

"He thought it was for the best." Sherlock turned to glance at Mycroft, whose lips were pinched tightly shut. 

"He was wrong," Mr. Holmes agreed, surprising John. He'd always thought Mr. Holmes the type to never say a negative thing about anyone. 

"As I have explained many times over the last several months, I believed it would be less painful for you if you didn't know the truth of what she had become." Mycroft stared at his mother and father in turn, as if daring them to object. 

Neither of them said a word in reply, but John wasn't going to let it pass. "Mycroft. Thinking someone you love has died is exceedingly painful, no matter the circumstances." He licked at his lips, which suddenly felt dry, and dared a glance at Sherlock, who shifted Rosie to his other hip and met John's eyes very briefly before turning away.

"Ah, actually, John does make a good point," Sherlock said.

Mycroft's lips twisted as he shrugged out of his coat. "Oh, shut up, Sherlock. Two seconds ago you were on my side, but the moment John opens his mouth, you change your position, of course."

"I didn't—" Sherlock began.

"Oh, come on, Mycroft." John turned to face him head on, any inhibitions he may have had about arguing in front of Mr. and Mrs. Holmes gone. "This isn't a game where we all have to choose sides. Stop being so childish."

"Childish? I never—"

"Enough!" Mrs. Holmes banged her handbag down on the end table . "It's Christmas Eve. We should be able to get along as a family for a few hours at least." Sherlock and Mycroft both muttered under their breath, but she ignored them. "Now, John, did you settle in upstairs while we were gone?"

"Er, no, actually." John forced himself to relax his stance. "I left our bags at the bottom of the stairs, and we stayed down here. Wasn't sure where you wanted to put us for the night."

"Well, I made up three bedrooms upstairs. I hope you don't mind having Rosie in your room, but if it's a problem, Mycroft can sleep on one of the sofas down here and Rosie can have his room."

"Oh, for God's sake!" Mycroft threw his coat toward the hooks on the wall and turned around, hands on his hips. "'Mycroft can sleep on the sofa?' Really? I don't think so." He strode across the room and kicked at one of the sofas, a rather feeble kick, in John's opinion, but still, he'd rarely seen Mycroft lose his temper that much before. "Why don't you have Sherlock sleep on the sofa, hmm?" He looked from his mother to Sherlock and back, then waved a hand in John's direction. "Or better yet, have Sherlock and John share a bed."

"We aren't—" Sherlock began.

"What—we don't—" John didn't get much further.

"Well, you can start now," Mycroft said. "God knows you've both been wanting to sleep together for long enough."

There was a seconds-long silence which John knew he should break, but he had no idea how, and before he was able to figure it out, Mrs. Holmes exclaimed, "Well, I never!" John thought he was going to die right then and there beneath her gaze, before she turned it on Sherlock. "It's true, isn't it?" she asked.

Sherlock stood with his eyes wide and his mouth open, not even seeming to notice when Rosie tried to stick her hand in it again. John knew his own tongue was darting in and out of his mouth but he was helpless to stop it. His instinct was to deny it, to defend himself, but there was nothing to defend himself against. The accusation that he and Sherlock both wanted to sleep together—or at least share a bed—wasn't an accusation so much as a revelation, though it was one he would have preferred to have a bit more privately. 

Mrs. Holmes clapped her hands. "Oh, I'm sorry, boys. This must very uncomfortable for both of you." She did nothing to hide her grin. "I'll go put the kettle on and see what's in for dinner, give the two of you some time alone. Sweetheart, if you wouldn't mind?"

"Of course." Mr. Holmes was grinning, too. He walked over to where Sherlock stood. "Let me take the little lady," he said, and took Rosie out of Sherlock's arms. "You boys can take your bags upstairs and settle in, maybe have a little talk, if you need to. I recommend the first room on the right—that's Sherlock's old room, and it has the newest mattress."

Sherlock's jaw moved but no sound came out as he met his father's eyes. Mr. Holmes hoisted Rosie onto his hip and patted Sherlock's arm. "You'll be fine. Don't worry."

Mycroft didn't say another word, amazingly. Apparently outing John and Sherlock to each other was satisfaction enough. He and his parents all disappeared into the kitchen together with Rosie—John could hear her babbling happily at them, so that was one thing he didn't have to worry about, at least. Just— "Sherlock?" he said quietly.

Sherlock nodded and John recognized the expression he had when he came back into the present after going offline momentarily. "John." He cleared his throat and said it again. "John. We should...talk. Discuss...this situation. Right?" He shot a glance over his shoulder at the staircase, then back at John.

"Yes," John said. "Okay. We should do that." He nodded at the sofa Mycroft had kicked. "Sit down," he said, because he was a little worried that Sherlock might fall over if he tried to walk very far. "Sit down. I think we've got a lot to talk about."


	24. Peace

John sat down next to Sherlock on the sofa, unsure of how to start the conversation. Sherlock blinked twice at him and then said, "I'm not high."

Again, not what he was expecting. "I didn't think you were."

"I'm not telling you. I'm telling myself." He must have seen John's look of confusion, because he went on, "Usually when something like this happens it's because I'm high and imagining it."

"Oh." John looked down at his own hands clasped together in his lap. "You only think about—" He paused, searching for the right word. "...us... when you're high?"

"I don't allow myself to think about it otherwise," Sherlock replied, and John watched his lips twist in regret. "I have to say that you're a lot easier to talk to when you're imaginary."

John couldn't stop himself from a small giggle at that. Sherlock's head shot up to look at him and then he giggled as well. They both sagged back against the sofa cushions, knees and elbows knocking into each other. 

"So," Sherlock said.

"Yeah." John still didn't know exactly what he wanted to say, but he wasn't nervous about it anymore. 

A moment later he was startled by a sudden, sharp cry from the kitchen. Rosie. He turned toward the sound, his body once again tense. Sherlock touched his arm. "Go on, see what she needs."

John nodded, then before he could doubt himself, leaned forward and kissed Sherlock on the lips. It was so quick he didn't even give Sherlock a chance to kiss back, but from the small sound Sherlock made he knew he'd done the right thing.

He went into the kitchen to tend to Rosie and their conversation did not resume until later, after dinner, once Rosie was in bed, tomorrow's presents were piled beneath the tree, and the rest of the family had retired to their own rooms. John emerged from the bathroom dressed for bed to find Sherlock in his pyjamas as well, pacing the small bedroom, the lights turned down low.

"John."

"Yes?" He kept his voice light, because Sherlock sounded as nervous as John had felt before dinner.

Sherlock stopped pacing. "That thing you did earlier...."

"Yes?" The kiss. He had to be talking about the kiss. John tucked his dirty clothes into his suitcase and turned to Sherlock, eyebrows raised in question.

Sherlock stepped forward and kissed him, longer this time, better. John kissed him back. After a few seconds, Sherlock pulled away and stepped back, running his tongue over his bottom lip. "Okay. Just making sure."

John smiled. "I'm not imaginary."

"Obviously. In all the times I imagined this, it never happened here, with my brother in the room next door and my parents down the hall."

"Er, yeah. That's a little inconvenient, isn't it?"

"Indeed." Sherlock frowned at the door to the hall and then stepped around the foot of the bed. "I need the left side," he said.

"I'm flexible," John told him.

"Are you now." Sherlock didn't even look at him, but John could feel his cheeks heating at the innuendo. He watched as Sherlock kicked off his slippers and climbed into the bed. "Come on. Get in so I can turn off the light. It's late, and tomorrow is Christmas."

John got into bed next to him, wondering if either of them would sprawl or snore or steal all the blankets. Sherlock clicked off the bedside lamp and rolled toward John. "A goodnight kiss?" he offered.

"Sure," John replied, and turned on his side to oblige. This kiss was even better than the last, and Sherlock's pyjamas were delicate and silky beneath John's hands. He was the one to break it off this time, out of a growing fear that he wouldn't be able to stop if they continued. "Um, since we're in your parents' house and your brother is right next door...."

"Yes. Sorry." Sherlock's voice was hoarse. "We can...pursue this further when we're back home. If you want to, that is." 

"I want to," John said quickly. "When we're home."

"Good. Good." Sherlock exhaled and moved his hands from where they'd settled on John's shoulder and ribs. 

John wriggled back a bit, pushing at his pillow to make it more comfortable. "I can't believe you never deduced that I wanted this before now."

"I did, but I never trusted the deduction because I thought I was just projecting my own desires."

"So much time we wasted."

"No, I don't think we did." John could hear Sherlock swallow, and felt one of his feet brush briefly against his leg. "I don't think either of us was ready for this until now."

John considered. "Maybe you're right."

"John. Of course I'm right."

John laughed and slid his own foot across the sheets to gently kick Sherlock in the shin. "Okay. Well. We're ready now, aren't we?"

"Yes. Yes, we are."

**Author's Note:**

> This is my fourth year of writing ficlets in December! If you're interested in my previous attempts, here they are:  
> [Christmas With You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12886374/chapters/29438091)  
> [Breaking Christmas](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8733127/chapters/20021335)  
> [Imagine the Christmas Dinners](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5337185/chapters/12323552)
> 
> Thanks for reading! If you're wondering what I plan to write next, I am going to give myself a week or so off before I continue writing and posting [Side Effects](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16530389/chapters/38722940), the sequel to [Breakable](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2522717/chapters/5605520). Check it out!
> 
> Come see me on [Tumblr](http://missdaviswrites.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/missdaviswrites) or [subscribe to me here](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissDavis) if you want to read more of my work. Thanks!


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